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1:21 am
November 18, 2010
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Katherine of Aragon made several trips to this shrine during her marriage to HVIII. Henry also made one after the birth of the New Years Prince , Henry of Cornwall.
How long would one of these trips have taken? Google maps shows a crow fly distance from Whitehall to Little Walsingham of 120 miles. As a non-Catholic, what would either of them have done at the shrine?
It's always bunnies.
12:07 pm
January 3, 2012
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It’s a wild guess here Anyanka, but it could have taken a month or more perhaps. You have to consider the state of the roads and the weather would play a major factor. A good horse can maybe travel 20 miles, but if it is pulling a carriage you are looking at about 10 miles a day at tops.
Given that our lady of Walsingham was seen as the Shrine of Childbirth and fertility, K.O.A would have been traveling in a carriage. As Pregnant woman were rather wrapped up in cotton wool in those days. Not to mention the endless baggage carriages that would have been with her at the time of travel
P.B. visit to it after the birth of the “New Year Prince” would again be governed by the weather and road conditions, but he perhaps could have been there and back inside 3 weeks, if he was lucky.
I believe it took nearly a month for P.B and his sister Mary to travel from London to Dover, when she was going to France to marry the French King (Louis the spider) a distance about 50 miles.
Semper Fidelis, quod sum quod
5:11 pm
February 24, 2010
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As Catholics they would have prayed, asking for good health for their child. (in Henry’s case anyway) Women went there to pray that they would become pregnant, and/or that the child they carried should be healthy. I imagine it was a retreat type thing. Their time would have been spent in prayer. If they were troubled by life’s events, they may have been counceled by the monks.
When I was much younger, and a practicing Catholic, we went on retreats all the time. We would spend a weekend at a retreat in PA. We went to lectures and studied bible stories.. We heard mass daily, and prayed. We attended Vespers, which is evening prayers. Of course we were young adults, so we also did crafts, pertaining to bible stories. Back in Katherine’s time there were more than just Vespers to attend. There are hourly prayers marking the hours of the day. Compline was another. That is the examination of one’s conscience.
It was a time of meditation and renewal of faith, asking God to intercede, to give his blessing.
